by Jacob Park for the Autumn 2026 issue
You called the police after seeing my mother, barefoot and bellowing, sprinting after the two thieves who had just robbed our jewelry store on Bergen Avenue. A skinny sixth grader at the time, I didn’t pose much of an obstacle to two full-grown men and was easily shoved to the floor then hurdled over by my mother who ran past you to disappear down a side street.
—Jacob, the phone, ve a buscarlo!
Prior to that moment, throwing my arms around you would’ve seemed inconceivable—and not only since my wingspan fell comically short of your magnificent girth—but suddenly the urge was overwhelming. Without dwelling on what might have held me back, your clear, practical command to action was exactly what I’d needed to get unstuck in time, disentangled from the weblike unreality that crimes plunge victims into.
Searching for the phone was like hyperventilating through an anxiety dream—rifling through rooms & unsequenced still lifes, uncertain as to whether my most recent memory would align with the facts in reality. Didn’t I see my brother take it into the bathroom that morning? Or was it the morning before? What if the last call was made in my absence, left uncradled somewhere I’d never think of looking?—finally rushing back downstairs and handing you our new cordless just like you’d asked, eyes up respectfully so you wouldn’t think I was watching how you received the handset. It’s curious that I can’t actually remember finding it, and am wondering today why it hadn’t occurred to me back then to make the call myself. I’d have known how to use a phone for years and had 9-1-1 drilled into me all through the public schools. You used the bare ring finger of your left hand, which I supposed made more sense than your pinkie—all the other fingers on that hand being, of course, missing. I feel like thirty-seven is a sufficient number of years to have passed to confess that I’d occasionally catch my eyes wandering over those three smooth, equilateral stubs where I half-expected, as I did that day, to see thumb, index, and middle digits with endless fascination and wonderment as you went about the bodega replenishing shelves and other day-to-day tasks that I’d imagined missing three fingers would complicate.
…
You let my friends and I hang out in the back of the bodega where there was a regular rotation of arcade games. You listened to our requests for new games as we mastered the old ones, and left the change box open the first week a new game arrived so everyone got to try it out for free. Masterful win-win marketing, an area I’m beginning to think I could use some help in as a new small business owner myself. Carlos’s bodega was something to aspire to, serving as an important vertebrae in the community’s nervous system.
Anyway, we must’ve spent half our allowances there every week for years. There were at least a dozen of us regulars always hanging around the place after school. You sold us scratch offs, and even told us after much clamoring insistence which ones hadn’t paid out yet. You’d hand out perishables past their expiration date to mitigate our gambling losses. Come to think of it, your bodega was where I learned to play Texas Hold ‘Em, watching the older kids play ten dollar buy-ins.
The other place that had an arcade game was the sandwich shop in Journal Square, but they only ever had one game that was hardly ever rotated out, which the older kids tended to monopolize anyway. Whenever they spilled over into your bodega, you made sure everyone got a turn.
One day, you got a space-themed pinball machine, with an extra pair of flippers located higher up the board that were synced up with the standard flippers protecting the drain. It was a novelty that quickly wore off, and gameplay was always too short, so we all insisted on its removal and voted with our quarters.
…
You weren’t as old as our parents, maybe in your late twenties, long black hair pulled back into a ponytail. An air of mystery shrouded the missing fingers on your left hand. My dad, speaking on no authority that I knew of, told me you lost your fingers in a fireworks accident. This must’ve been conveniently around the fourth of July. He smiled in warning. I didn’t believe him, but got the message. You were a permanent neighborhood fixture. I never saw you outside the bodega—just that one time in our store. You never needed to go anywhere; people always came to you. You never talked about taking vacations, but remained closed on Sundays.
You were always clean-shaven, preferred blue jeans to slacks, none of which seemed to fit assuming they were in fact different pairs, paired with something from your collection of black t-shirts that reflected the history of every concert you’d ever attended—Def Leppard, Black Sabbath, Metallica, all bands I never listened to. You never married and had no children as far as I knew. Your mother and sister would often pop in for short visits, and your friends would stop by less frequently but stayed longer, helping themselves to beers in the refrigeration unit opposite the cash register.
You kept a baseball bat behind the counter. I’ve seen you wield it a few times in protection of the bodega, but never actually take a swing at anyone.
…
I wondered once if the bodega was still there and went online to check, but it wasn’t. Perhaps another casualty of the COVID-19 pandemic? Now it’s the St. George Deli & Grocery, serving “amazing home made Egyptian food.” One reviewer exhorts hungry readers to definitely try their lamb and stuffed cabbage rolls. 4.7 stars and 60 reviews overall. I would’ve made the trip if you were still there. It’s just one subway stop past mine, but a little out of the way for stuffed cabbage.
…
I remember you as a voracious newspaper reader. You read The New York Times, The Village Voice, The Star Ledger, a couple of Spanish-language publications, and the favorite among my friend group as a source of comics, sports, local news, and which had a real exciting crime beat section back in those days, The Jersey Journal, our little litmag’s namesake only spoken in thicker Jersey accents.
You left old newspapers on a locked filing cabinet, which I never once saw you open, for us to pass the time waiting for our turns. We put up quarters on the machines, and everyone kept mental track of whose was next in line. We sat on overturned milkcrates and walked out of your bodega with waffle marks on the seat of the pants we flew by.
…
The very last time I ever saw you was in Journal Square. I was returning from renewing my driver’s license at the DMV on Newark Avenue sometime before the pandemic. I recognized you by your gait. By then I’d become the proud father of a middle school student myself.
—Carlos? I questioned, though I knew it could only be you.
I couldn’t bring myself to ask what you were doing now, fearing a premonition that your bodega had shut down. You still dressed shabbily, still tied your hair up in that familiar ponytail. It was the first time I’d ever seen you drunk. I was concerned how early in the day it still was, but you were all smiles, and before I could explain who I was—the scrawny Korean kid whose parents ran the jewelry store down the street—you threw your big, heavy arms around me and gave me the hug I’d been waiting for for years. 🏁
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